Hi, I was wondering whether barrels/kegs of brandy, rum or whisky will actually explode if you hit an open one with a flaming arrow? Or does it at least go up in a huge flame?
You see those things in films all the time and I scoured the internet a bit for that sort of thing but couldn't find any real answer to this.
I mean, a molotov cocktail explodes in a large flame, but that has sort of been heated a bit before the fire actually hits the liquid, meaning there has been some vaporisation gone on. A keg that has been sitting in a camp or storehouse open or closed probably has not gotten that much heat/warmth.
Any ideas about this?
I am not going to get scientific here, and also, realize that what's burning is the alcohol/ethanol and the vapor. The higher the proof (percentage of alcohol) the more vapor it gives off and the easier it ignites. Typically, 50% (100 proof) is about the reasonably flammable point. Rum tends to run from 60—150 proof and brandy 70-120 proof, so both average about 100 proof-ish.
Also, it depends on the heat of the flame used. The 100 proof thing is about a match or lit stick, like a tinderwig. If you were using something really hot, like a butane lighter or acetylene torch, you would be able to ignite much lower proof alcohol, like wine or something (because the sheer heat would actual be heating up the wine and generating more alcohol vapor than normal. Again, not going into real-world thermodynamics (I am not here to defend anything I say scientifically, in other words, this is Advice), but assume that rum and brandy will ignite (not explode).
What could cause an explosion, is a build up of alcohol vapor. Even with wine, if you have enough and don't have proper ventilation, the ethanol will build up and an open flame could ignite explosively. So if you've got a lot of open barrels or a whole bunch of fermentation and distillation going on, you could get such a burn off which might qualify as an 'explosion'. It probably wouldn't make the rum or brandy explode itself, but it would heat it up, which would make it produce vapor.. which would ignite it... which would make the fire burn hotter from the addition of more accelerant.
For the purposes of game, shooting a flaming arrow into the side of a barrel of rum or brandy, even an open one, will probably do nothing. Shooting it 'into' a barrel... probably would just extinguish it. It's likely too fast unless you're talking high-grade moonshine. If you could shoot it into the wall, or into the top of the barrel and it had a second or two to ignite the fumes along the top (which would start the surface of the liquor burning... then you could ignite it and it would burn really hot (no call on the 'splash damage' it might deal).
Molotov cocktails are typically jellied gasoline or petroleum, but you are probably thinking of the scenes with a bar fight and someone grabs a bottle of liquor and stuffs a bar rag into it. Obviously the higher-proof the more likely the alcohol will ignite (which is what the burning rag is for or course), so you'll probably want the 151-stuff, but even in lower-proof cases, when the bottle breaks the ethanol vapors that were containing in the bottle spread out and ignite, and since the alcohol is spread thin or in flying droplets and mist, those tend to ignite much more readily. Most molotovs just ignite and set fire, they don't tend to explode (in so much as it's a burst of flaming liquid).
Again, when explosions happen in distilleries and such, it's typically from a large build-up of vapor and any 'explosions' from igniting barrels typically happen well after a fire has already started and the alcohol stored in the kegs has heated, expanded, and begins bursting its containers. But... I could be wrong.
Good answer above.
A typical barrel of consumable alcohol will do nothing but maybe burn if hit with a flaming arrow, or even a tracer bullet.
Assuming we are talking high proof alcohol, not wine or koolaid or whatever, spilling an open barrel on and around closed barrels could set up some good fireworks.
Boiling Liquid, Expanding Vapor Explosions are some of the most powerful non-atomic blasts out there, but getting wooden barrels of low grade alcohol to ignite in such a way is very improbable.
Since this is a fantasy game, I think it's fine that they explode since that's what happens in film. If you're looking for the real world answer though, I think it is well explained above.
on a side note, flaming arrows/ammunition doesn't actually work in RL either, since the speed of the projectile tends to put out the flame. You would have to dunk it into something like napalm at minimum just for it to stay lit the entire time.
So, when flaming arrows are a thing, I see no reason other movie tropes can't also be a thing like exploding red barrels.
A flaming arrow is usually one with an oil soaked rag wrapped around and pinned to the arrowhead. It makes the arrow much less aerodynamic, reducing the range you could shoot one, but if you did shoot one into the side of a barrel then the rag would just have a chance to catch the barrel itself on fire. Eventually, as detailed above, all you would achieve most of the time is a nice alcohol fueled barrel fire.
Use the equipment rules for Oil, if you need in game mechanics to apply. A flask of oil has a 50% chance of igniting like alchemist fire.
It is a fantasy game, after all. Television and video games have taught everyone to stay away from red barrels.
Fun side note, as a prank some of my fueler buddies would put out their cigarettes in open barrels of JP-8 Diesel fuel, so it's far more likely that a flaming arrow just fizzles out in the barrel of brandy.
LordKailas wrote:
on a side note, flaming arrows/ammunition doesn't actually work in RL either, since the speed of the projectile tends to put out the flame. You would have to dunk it into something like napalm at minimum just for it to stay lit the entire time.
Personal experience says otherwise. I've made and shot quite a few flaming arrows, sure they don't fly as far as a regular arrow, but they do fly (and fairly well), and they'll still be burning when they hit the target.
Booze isn't even flammable until around, like, 100 proof. Even most liquors generally aren't above 80 proof.
To actually get it to explode, you'd need to get a good air/fuel mixture going first, which a barrel just wouldn't do.
So fire? Maybe but probably not. Explosion? No.
In the UK it's traditional to put brandy on a Christmas pudding and set fire to it. You have to heat the pudding up first to get the alcohol to evaporate. It then burns with a mild blue flame which tends to go out unless you have a good hot pudding and a lot of brandy.
So you might sensibly have a lake of flaming alcohol as the booze pours out of the ruptured barrel and ignites on the burning arrow's oily rag, but it'll do no more than 1d6/round to anyone in it. And that assumes that your arrow actually breaches the inch-thick oak.
Mythbusters (the new version, a pale shadow of the original) recently came pretty close to addressing this. They were trying to reproduce a scene from an ad--shooting a car with a flaming crossbow bolt to make it explode.
They found doing it directly was impossible. Everything they shot would simply be extinguished even when it went into the gas tank. (Note that this matches up with the original version finding tracer rounds were likewise not up to exploding a gas tank.)
Only when they already had a leak and they arranged the shot so the flaming material did not actually enter the gas tank did they get fire, and even then no boom.
The reason a molotov "explodes" is that the container shatters, spilling the highly flammable contents around, and then lighting it from the still-burning rag--and even then there's no blast, just a sudden bunch of fire.
A BLEVE makes a huge boom but they don't come out of nowhere. The precursor to a BLEVE is a big fire around a tank of highly flammable material that can hold pressure. The fire heats the tank until it bursts, then the contents are ignited as they spew everywhere.
While propane cylinders are sometimes used as improvised explosive devices a substantial boom must be used to shatter and disperse them--when explosives are in limited supply and your target is soft it's a way of getting more boom from them, but if you don't have the explosives in the first place you won't get a boom.
Fun, potentially relevant fact?
Hay dust and grain dust. When those get airborne, as happens pretty readily, they are quite explosive. Like, can bring a barn/silo down explosive, if there's enough in the air.
There was a post about fireball cast in a grain mill not too long ago.
The BLEVE does need a vessel to contain pressure, that's why my original post said wooden barrels probably wouldn't get it done.
All this real life stuff is kind of depressing to the overall grandeur of flaming arrows thematically exploding barrels of alcohol, though.
Gaming has taught us all to avoid red barrels at all cost. If the NPC's haven't learned this yet, they will... by all means, shooting barrels of flammable liquid with flaming arrows should have the expected results in a fantasy game.
I like to imagine that dwarf-made spirits have something other than ethanol in them to give them that special taste/tendency to explode.
avr wrote: I like to imagine that dwarf-made spirits have something other than ethanol in them to give them that special taste/tendency to explode. Beard oil. They're always accidentally dragging and dunking them in the barrels while sealing them.
Lord Kailas wrote: So, when flaming arrows are a thing, I see no reason other movie tropes can't also be a thing like exploding red barrels. Certainly, but I say why stop there? I think baby bunnies should also explode when shot with flaming arrows. (maybe they really do... has anyone tested?)
"What...the hell... just happened?!"
"Uh... apparently no one else has shot a baby bunny with a flaming arrow in Pathfinder before now... Who knew?"
Contrary to holywood, explosions only happen between when you have a specific range of oxidants (air) and fuel (gas, alcohol whatever). The window where explosions occur is very picky.
And even then, you can't have things that disrupt the wave front - like winds, metal heat sinks etc.
I don't think there is enough energy in rum to cause an explosion. To low a viscosity, too low a vapor pressure.
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